Originally Released May 1982
Reissued May 20, 2022
Sony
3xLP
While everyone knows “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah”, there’s way more than just that going on with Combat Rock. The Clash’s best-selling album might very well be their weirdest. You have the early hip-hop jam session, with an assist from New York graffiti artist Futura 2000, “Overpowered By Funk”. There’s “Straight to Hell”, the cloudy new-wave track that went on to get a second life as the basis for M.I.A’s “Paper Planes”. Allen Ginsburg even shows up in the inner city tale “Ghetto Defendant”. The Clash could be a lot of different bands in their short and productive career, all of those bands are on display on Combat Rock. Included in this special edition set are outtakes and alternate versions of tracks from the Combat Rock sessions that add even more detail into this eccentric, brilliant part of the band’s career.